He was appointed an OBE
- Officer of the Order of the British Empire - in the 2001 New Year
Honours list.

Biography:

Throughout his childhood,
he endured poverty and disadvantage, as well as seeing his father physically
abuse his mother; experiences which influenced his later political and
ideological beliefs and led him to become the patron of Refuge, a UK
charity for abused women and he has given his name to a scholarship
at the University of Huddersfield, where he is Chancellor, to fund post-graduate
study into domestic violence.

He attributes his acting career to an
English teacher named Cecil Dormand who "put a copy of Shakespeare
in my hand and said, 'Now get up on your feet and perform'"; he
continued to study drama and at 15 participated in local theatre; at
first he worked as a newspaper reporter and obituary writer, but after
a year, his employer gave him an ultimatum to choose acting or journalism,
so he quit the job.

Following a period with the Manchester
Library Theatre, he became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company
in 1966, staying with them until 1982; he was as an Associate Artist
of the company in 1968; in January 1967, he made his debut TV appearance
on Coronation Street as a Fire Officer; in 1969, he had a brief TV cameo
role as Horatio; he made his Broadway debut as Snout in Peter Brook's
legendary production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, then moved to the
Royal National Theatre in the early 1980s.

He appeared as Lenin in Fall of Eagles;
Sejanus in I, Claudius; Karla in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's
People; Claudius in a 1980 BBC adaptation of Hamlet; he even took the
romantic male lead in the 1975 BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's North
and South; he also took the lead, playing Psychiatric Consultant Dr.
Edward Roebuck in a BBCtv series called, 'Maybury', in 1981.

He also had minor roles in several films
such as King Leondegrance in John Boorman's Excalibur (1981), the character
Gurney Halleck in David Lynch's 1984 film version of Dune and Dr. Armstrong
in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985).

In 1987 he agreed to work in Hollywood,
after Robert H. Justman, producer for a revival of a long-cancelled
television show, saw him while attending a literary reading at UCLA;
Stewart knew nothing about the original show, Star Trek, or its iconic
status in American culture; he was reluctant to sign the standard contract
of six years, but did so as he believed that the new show would quickly
fail and he would return to his London stage career after making some
money.

When Stewart began his role as Captain
Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–94) the
Los Angeles Times called him an unknown British Shakespearean actor;
Stewart was unprepared for the long hours of television production,
had difficulty in fitting in with his less-disciplined castmates, and
his "spirits used to sink" when required to memorise and recite
Treknobabble; he came to better understand the cultural differences
between the stage and television, remains close friends with his fellow
Star Trek actors and his favourite technical line became "space-time
continuum".

Besides making him immediately wealthy
due to the show's great success, Stewart calculated during one break
during filming the show that he made more money during that break than
from 10 weeks of Woolf in London and Stewart received a 1995 Screen
Actors Guild Award nomination for "Outstanding Performance by a
Male Actor in a Drama Series".

When asked in 2011 for the highlight of
his career, he chose Star Trek: The Next Generation, "because it
changed everything for me."; he has also said he is very proud
of his work on Star Trek: The Next Generation, for its social message
and educational impact on young viewers.